Blackwell, Elizabeth

Born: 1821 AD
Died: 1910 AD

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1821 – She was born on the 3rd day of February this year in Bristol, England.

1832 – The family immigrated to the United States, and set up a refinery in New York City. After the death of her father, she took up a career in teaching. Desiring to apply herself to the practice of medicine, she took up residence in a physician’s household, using her time there to study from the family’s medical library.

1849 – She attended Geneva College in New York. She was accepted there anecdotally, because the faculty put it to a student vote, and the students thought her application a fraud and braved the prejudice of some of the professors and students to complete her training. She overcame scoffs and prejudice from the faculty as well as from her fellow students while at medical school. On the 11th day of January of this year, she became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, graduating at the top of her class.

1857- She was banned from practice in most hospitals; she founded her own infirmary, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, in this year. When the American Civil War began, she trained nurses.

1868 – She founded a Women’s Medical College at the Infirmary to train women, physicians, and doctors. After American hospitals refused to hire her, she opened a clinic in New York City where her sister Dr. Emily Blackwell and Dr. Marie E. Zakrzews joined her.

1869 – She left her sister Emily in charge of the College and returned to England. There, with Florence Nightingale, she opened the Women’s Medical College. Blackwell taught at the newly created London School of Medicine for Women and became the first female physician and doctor in the UK Medical Register.